• Father sexually groomed his child by exposing her to pornographic videos from young
• It desensitised her to the heinous nature of the sexual assaults 
• The daughter did not speak up until she was 14 years old

SINGAPORE — A 48-year-old man who raped his biological daughter over the course of seven years, from when she was seven or eight years old, was sentenced to 28 years in jail and 24 strokes of the cane at the High Court on Thursday (Aug 20).

When he first sexually assaulted her, she did not even know or understand what was being done to her, the court heard. 

The father cannot be named due to a court order protecting the victim, who turns 17 this year. He had exposed his girl to pornographic videos that desensitised her to the heinous nature of the sexual assaults.

It was when she was about nine years old that she began to realise that he was doing something wrong. 

By then, she had already complied with his sexual demands because he was her father and they shared a good relationship.

In sentencing him, Justice Dedar Singh Gill condemned the father for abusing his clear position of authority for his own “perverse” sexual gratification. The victim was at an age when she “should be enjoying a blissful and carefree life”, he said.

The father pleaded guilty to three charges of aggravated statutory rape on Thursday.

The court heard that he would sexually exploit his child once or twice a year whenever his wife — the child’s biological mother who is now 46 — was not at home.

The first time he did it, the girl’s mother was out working and her younger sister was watching television in the living room. He and his daughter were alone in the master bedroom when he told her to close and lock the door because he wanted to massage her. 

After the sexual assault, she felt pain when she urinated, but he told her not to tell her mother or anyone else of what they had done.

Her father’s predatory ways came to light in late 2017 after the girl turned 14. This was after she told her mother that she had been sexually assaulted when she was younger. 

Her mother took her to Bukit Merah East Neighbourhood Police Centre to report the matter, and the girl revealed to police officers that she was raped by her father.

The father was then arrested.

‘ROBBED HER OF CHILDHOOD’

When seeking a jail term of 30 years and 24 strokes of the cane as his punishment, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jane Lim argued that there was no doubt that the accused had “completely robbed the victim of her childhood and innocence”.

“The accused grossly abused his position and the trust reposed in him, by repeatedly sexually abusing her for seven years to satiate his odious sexual desires,” she said.

This serious breach of trust was compounded by the fact that he had committed the offences against his daughter in the “sanctity of her own home”, she added.

“She had every right to expect safety in the family home and its surroundings, but this was forcibly taken away from her when the accused used the home as a means to gain easy and uninterrupted access to the victim.”

DPP Lim pointed out that the father had unprotected sex with the girl, which engendered a risk of pregnancy and the spread of a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

In seeking a shorter jail term of 26 years, the father’s lawyer, Mr Daniel Atticus Xu, argued that the accused did not use force against the victim or trapped her, stressing that there is “no violence, no pregnancy and no STDs” in the present case.

DPP Lim, however, said that the absence of use of force and threat as well as pregnancy or an STD should not be seen as mitigating factors — they should rightly be seen as “serious aggravating factors”.

The father could have been jailed up to 20 years and caned at least 12 strokes on each conviction of aggravated statutory rape against a person below 14 years of age without that person’s consent.

The girl’s mother asked to speak to her husband via video conferencing platform Zoom after Thursday’s sentencing.

When the court was still in session, Mr Xu divulged that the wife is in a “very conflicted situation”. “On one hand, it is her daughter; on the other hand, it is the husband. On behalf of (the couple), we are praying that Your Honour will give an appropriate sentence,” he said.